>> It is in the philosophy of the Greeks to aspire to be like the gods-- the hero Heracles, perfectly muscular; Aphrodite, perfectly sensual.

>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio: a visit to the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses still holding court.

Then an actor and teacher with lessons for us all.

>> To be a teacher, you have to be so selfless.

to have to be selfless at that level and responsible for so many young people and people of that level, it changes you... (chuckling): forever.

>> BOWEN: And in Ohio, youth radio gives voice to a new generation.

>> Radio is a very emotive thing.

And it's still something that can move people to tears, make people laugh, make people get angry.

That's why people tune in.

>> BOWEN: It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ First up, at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, everything old is new again.

With a fresh look at its works from the ancient world, the museum has just unveiled new galleries of Greek and Roman objects dating back thousands of years.

But as the MFA reveals, those early artisans created objects for all time.

This is a moment to experience the divine.

>> It is in the philosophy of the Greeks to aspire to be like the gods.

These are idealized-- the hero Heracles, perfectly muscular; Aphrodite, perfectly sensual in all the right places.

>> BOWEN: The gods and goddesses are within reach here at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, which has just unveiled a series of reimagined galleries featuring the work of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire.

They take visitors back thousands of years-- scaling the heights of a veritable Mount Olympus and dipping into the bustle of daily life.

>> We are listening in on conversations of folks that lived 3,000 years ago, who drank good wine, who had parties in which they sang odes to the heroes, told stories about the gods, and had philosophical discussions that resulted in democracy, major drama that we still perform.

>> BOWEN: Christine Kondoleon is chair of the museum's Greek and Roman collections.

She says in this gallery of the gods, these statues represent their stand-ins-- often sculpted for worship in temples.

Zeus might still be the front and center king, but it's the flanking gods who got down to business.

>> You could pray to them.

If you were sick, you would go to a place like Epidaurus and seek help from Asclepius, the god of medicine.

Hygeia, who is the goddess of health.

(chuckling): We really need her in the world today.

You could invoke help from them and you could honor them.

Because if you didn't honor them, they might hurt you.

So this is part of the deal.

>> BOWEN: A formidable thought when it comes to the 13-foot tall, 13,000-pound Juno, married to Jupiter or Zeus.

The largest classical sculpture in America, she descended from the sky into the museum ten years ago, after standing anonymously in a suburban Boston estate for more than a century.

>> My research has tracked her back to the late first century B.C., standing in the Theatre of Pompey, the first marble theater of Rome.

>> BOWEN: These galleries meander from the monumental to the matters of everyday-- to fashionable hair, tools, and drinking cups; to commemorations of creativity and carousing.

>> What really touches me, it's the human connection.

It's this thread that, you know, ties you to this person 2,000 years ago that touched the objects.

>> BOWEN: Laure Marest is one of the galleries' curators.

She says some of what we find here carries the same urgency it did thousands of years ago.

Like a seemingly simplistic triangle.

It carries a much deeper meaning.

>> It's shaped like female genitalia, and on the top there is, there is an inscription.

And the inscription clearly says it's a gift given by a woman named Daphne as a thank you to Zeus Hypsistos for having healed her.

And, you know, those are things that we still experience, and when you might not have the modern medicine we have today, you have to turn to something, someone, maybe a greater someone, to try to, to help.

>> Meet Andokides, a highly regarded master potter... >> BOWEN: Marest was also instrumental in bringing technology into the galleries.

>> In the sixth century B.C.E., Athenian vases were prized far and wide for their superior shapes and designs... >> BOWEN: This film describes a fictional story about the very real and revolutionary practices at play in creating this Athenian vase from the sixth century B.C., when artisans discovered a way to depict figures in red and not the usual black.

>> It's not only a history of aesthetics, it's also a history of technology, because really this requires huge experiments in firing, in basically chemistry that probably had to do thousands of experiments to come up with this really complicated system.

>> BOWEN: Back in the Gods and Goddesses gallery, a Roman replica of a statue at the Acropolis is a digital revelation all its own.

For a long time, I think we've all looked at ancient statues and thought, "Well, this is how they were created."

Is this how they were created?

>> It's not.

Originally it was very brightly painted.

It's almost garish sometimes, (chuckling): we think today.

>> BOWEN: (chuckles) >> And so we decided that really part of our mandate here was to convey this, because we need to show how the ancients encountered those works.

>> BOWEN: To determine how the statue originally looked, the museum employed a host of methods from old-school scrutiny... >> If you look really closely, for example, here.

>> BOWEN: I do see those, yeah.

>> You see the reddish hues.

So our Lady Athena had red hair.

>> BOWEN: ...to special lighting, photographic techniques, and chemical analysis.

>> What especially reacted is a-- it's a blue pigment called Egyptian blue that reacts under specific light conditions.

And we did find a lot of it on the aegis, on her helmet.

>> BOWEN: It all means we may need to credit the Greeks and Romans with giving us Technicolor, too.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> By this right hand, and by my father's sword, and all the honors 'longing to my crown, I will have heads and lives for him, as many as I have manors, castles, towns, and towers... >> BOWEN: That's actor Maurice Parent as Shakespeare's Edward II.

He has been a forceful presence on Boston-area stages for years.

But what audiences might not realize is that by day, Parent was also a Boston Public Schools teacher.

Now he's putting that experience on stage in Mr. Parent, a new play at the Lyric Stage Company.

Maurice Parent, you are Mr. Parent.

And Melinda Lopez, you wrote this piece.

Thank you so much, both of you, for being here.

>> Thank you.

>> Thanks for having us.

>> BOWEN: Maurice, do I have to call you, Mr. Parent?

Is that the authority you now wield?

>> Only at dinner.

(all laugh) >> BOWEN: So tell me about... we all know you as an actor, but you've had this secret life as a Boston Public Schools teacher.

At what point did it occur to you, did it occur to you that this is something that belonged on stage?

>> Thank you for that question.

And again, thanks for having us.

Actually, it didn't occur to me, I'm going to be honest.

I had lived this double life like you just described.

I had a lovely acting career with shows that rehearsed at night and on the weekends, and so I had a day job during the day.

When I finally decided to leave teaching and commit to acting more full-time, one of my first shows was at the Huntington, Skeleton Crew, and the director, Megan Sandberg-Zakian, dear friend of ours, heard me telling these stories, and I just kept telling stories about my kids and there was laughing, and like, Toccara, one of the actresses, her face was like, in pain (laughing): from all the laughter.

And Megan said, "I think there's a one-man show here."

And then she eventually told Melinda, and then that's how it came to be.

>> BOWEN: So, you were teaching young kids, and you were teaching them in the arts?

>> I was, yeah, I was teaching as a... a theater arts specialist, I believe was my official title in the Boston Public Schools for five years.

>> BOWEN: So Melinda, what did you... it takes a high bar to bring somebody's story on the stage, but what did you see here?

>> I think it's really important to acknowledge, "I wrote it," but we co-wrote it.

You know, Maurice told stories, and, and we...

I accumulated them, and I put them in a form that can be represented on stage.

we met and sat down and I said, "Tell me about your kids."

And Maurice talked for three, four hours, story after story after story.

And some were, you know, hilarious, and some were profoundly moving.

And, you know, ultimately about his decision, um... his, his weighing the decision of to... do I stay in this career or do I pursue a different career?

And there was so much dramatic tension in there.

Drama is best when love is calling you in two directions, right?

And that's Maurice's story.

>> At the book fair, there were also toys for sale.

And the toys would go first, and I'm like, "Y'all, buy a book.

"Buy this book for a dollar.

We'll give you the toys."

>> BOWEN: As I was reading the script, I was thinking, these kids are so young for some of the things that they are saying and doing.

>> Yeah, yeah, you know, and as children reflect the cultures they're around and what they see, and it's really an indictment of our communities and what we're, what we're putting kids in and how we're setting them up for success or failure, and how we can all, all of us, regardless of where you live, regardless of what part of the state you live in, we can do better with the inequity of the school system, a lot of what some young people in our state face.

And we can read a statistic, but to see it firsthand... (chuckles) It, uh... permanently changes you.

>> BOWEN: Well, I can see you're being a little careful about how you're talking about the school, but you just said it changed you forever.

What about it changed you?

>> I like to say, I think this was in the play, before I started teaching, it felt like that feather in Forrest Gump, just kind of floating around, I was like, "You know, I'll live in Boston, I'll see what that's like."

And then to have 15, 30, sometimes more, young people looking up at you for guidance and instruction, it makes you... it grounds you as a person.

It makes you a little bit more self-assured, and know that, um... (chuckles) I told myself I wouldn't get emotional, but it's, you know, it's-- it's just really humbling and really shaping.

The actor's career, as much as I love it, is very insular, is very focused on self.

But then, to be a teacher, you have to be so selfless.

And that's... the understatement of the year.

>> Yeah.

>> But it's... to have to be selfless at that level and responsible for so many young people and people of that level, it changes you, for... forever.

12:30 to 3:00-- (claps) Six periods a day-- (claps) teaching theater.

How hard could that be?

>> BOWEN: Melinda, I'm sure there's so much of this that you could identify with.

Being an actor, an artist, you're a parent.

So did you approach this differently than you might other projects?

>> I took this on as an opportunity to feature all the unbelievable talent of my friend Maurice, who's this fantastic actor, right?

He's done Shakespeare, he's been in the park.

He's performed Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun, comedies, dramas.

And I wanted to showcase his, his talent and, and then how that... how that is in conversation with working in a very high-poverty school.

Some of the statistics around that school or, you know, in the '80s, '90s, of poverty, kids that are in severely challenged circumstances.

And so, how you bring your full self into that classroom.

At the same time, that you're also reaching young people in an audience when you're taking a curtain call and you can see in their eyes that your show has touched them, like that's a really great tension in the play.

>> There was no manual.

It was sink or swim.

Good money, health insurance, steady work, and I mean, I had some experience.

I mean, I had taught "Single Ladies" to a bunch of teenage girls.

>> BOWEN: How do you see yourself?

Are you, you yourself, or are you a character here?

>> It's a mix.

So I'm playing a curated, dramatized version of myself, but also of each student I talk about and each teacher I talk about.

Every person I bring up that's not from a play is actually an amalgam... amalgamation of multiple stories and multiple children, multiple teachers, so... and also the, the Maurice that's in the play is very much of it is still very true to me today in 2022, but is also a sort of curated amalgam of my experiences during those years.

>> BOWEN: Well, in this, in this piece, we realize how much you get knocked around, just not making a lot of money, making the major decision to move from New York to Boston, to be this teacher in the circumstances, and the experiences that you had, and still pursue the actor's life.

So, Melinda, I'm wondering if there's some of you that you brought to this script knowing that, that drive it takes to pursue something you love, but that can kind of beat you up for it?

>> Yeah, much of the show is Maurice's stories, and then there's me in it as well.

You know, how things are in it together, and there are some speeches.

There are some speeches about, you know... the theater is so impermanent, it doesn't last.

You give your all to something that evaporates when it's over.

Um, the questioning of, you know, is this calling to all of me?

Am I, am I serving enough people with my work?

Should I be a doctor, right?

(laughter) Right, I mean, those are questions that I turn over and over, and Maurice is so skilled and wonderful that he can take something that's so deeply felt for me, that I put on the page, and make it his own.

>> You know, I laugh because with the doctor thing, it's, I swear, somewhere around week two or three of almost every process, I'm like, I should have become an accountant like my mother wanted me to.

(laughter) >> BOWEN: Well, Maurice, I'll give you the last word here.

You mentioned looking back at this period of your life.

Is this a demarcation?

Are you a different person now, on the, on the other side of this, and especially as you look back?

>> I am, but the beautiful aspect of going into the show, going through this process, sharing with people, is that really difficult part of me that has evolved and grown past this time and learned, but part of me that has not, and there will always be a part of me that will always feel guilty, I'm just going to say it.

>> BOWEN: Guilty of?

>> For having left young people that look just like me.

But I could not serve them with my fullest self, so I had to leave.

It is the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

And that's the beauty of this piece, where it's, I'm both proud of where I am today, and where I've come, and what I accomplished, but also honoring that part of me that will always wonder, and will always still be in the classroom.

>> BOWEN: Maurice Parent, Melinda Lopez, thank you both again for being with us.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: We are homeward bound in a Concord Museum show.

That and more in Arts This Week.

♪ ♪ It's a wrap for The Belmont World Film's Family Festival Sunday.

The family friendly festivities showcase films from all over the globe.

Tuesday, visit Harvard University's Peabody Museum for Muchos Mexicos.

The bilingual exhibition illustrates how the nation was a cultural pillar for indigenous people.

Blue Heron Spotlight Sessions presents a concert by Sean Gallagher, Wednesday.

The musician and scholar takes online audiences through a century-and-a-half of French song.

Friday is one of the last days to view HOME: Paintings by Loring W. Coleman at the Concord Museum.

With painstaking detail, it's the late artist documenting a vanishing New England.

Connect with Boston printmakers Saturday at the Museum of Printing.

See artists' work and how it's made in demonstrations on engraving and printmaking.

Next, in Dayton, Ohio teenagers are finding a safe space on the open airwaves.

A youth radio program offering microphones and mentors is helping students to literally and figuratively find their voice and, for some, their calling.

♪ ♪ >> I'm not sure why I decided to put on my Superman costume.

>> My mom would always put me and my brother before her, even for the small things.

>> I love my skin.

I love being beautiful.

I love being Black, but not everybody else loves it.

I heard about Dayton Youth Radio through my creative writing teacher.

It was sort of nothing like I expected.

I mean, not that I went in there with negative expectations, but I was a little nervous towards the beginning.

I thought my voice was gonna shake, but I got comfortable pretty quick.

Through Dayton Youth Radio, I learned that I'm actually really courageous.

I didn't know that I had all of this ambition in me until I went with it, until I flowed with it, honestly.

And, when I did, I felt like it was beautiful.

It kinda made me feel empowered.

>> Dayton Youth Radio is a safe place for teenagers to tell stories about their lives, and to talk about anything they want, and to learn how to use radio equipment.

I put together an eight-week program and became the founding producer of this series in 2013.

Public school and private school teachers reach out and invite me into their classroom.

Over 175 teenagers have come through this program, ten at a time.

That first day is so important to just build trust.

And so we can talk about anything.

Once you get past that first hour of being with a new group of teenagers, we form a tribe.

It's ;n eight-week course, by week three, they start telling me about what they would like to do with this microphone.

Like, you have the microphone now, you've got it for three minutes.

And what do you want to talk about?

They're writing scripts, and you have to tell the truth, it has to be about truth.

Towards the end of the course, we come to WYSO and they do their narratives.

>> We talked about how writing for radio is different than writing for someone to read, and the importance of still capturing your audience and building a scene for them and making sure that there's enough detail that they can imagine the scene, but not too much that they're lost in it.

My Dayton Youth Radio story was about my transition from male to female, and about how I encountered the world differently than a lot of other people because I happened to be a teenager who's trans.

Through Dayton Youth Radio, I learned that my personal story can have an impact on the people and environment that surround me, and even something as small as radio story can really open someone's eyes and maybe even change their views.

>> What were you wearing, where were you drinking?

What did you think were gonna happen walking home alone?

>> I guess what I'm trying to say is: love is the best band-aid you can use.

>> It bothers me that he never got to see me perform in color guard.

He hasn't been able to watch me grow up.

>> The first year were pretty generic stories.

But then I noticed the second year, the students wanted to talk about deeper and deeper topics.

And sometimes students would cry in class as they talked about a subject that they wanted to do, and I had to look at my syllabus and said, you know what, I need more training, because if a student's talking about losing a loved one and then I'm like, well, this is how a microphone works, I wasn't being effective.

So, after the second year, I went back and got certified in mental health training for working with adolescents.

I know how to make this place even safer now with my training and then we could go deeper and if you look at our series, the stories have gotten more intense, more personal.

>> It was almost like I was living in two different worlds.

At school, I always had a lunch, yet at home, when we couldn't afford milk, my dad told me to pour water in my cereal.

>> One of the things I dislike about my culture is young marriage.

My great-grandma got married when she was only 13 years old.

>> My dad, who had always had a job, had been laid off.

Being laid off affected the way he saw our country, our community.

Now he seemed to be talking about race all the time.

I wasn't trying to tear anybody down, I was trying to bring light to an issue which is important to me that I don't agree with.

I was actually in Dayton Youth Radio last year and it kind of inspired me to become interested in radio more, and also just media at large.

I go to Bowling Green and I major in broadcast journalism.

>> Go and hit pause.

What we can do is, let's hold off on getting the bike sounds.

Let's just finish it.

'Cause the bike sounds can always just be thrown back in.

Like, it's not vital.

(voiceover): I go to Ohio State University and I'm studying journalism.

And then what we'll do, if we get everything done before 2:30, we'll just go out and have you sit with the recording equipment, like, in your lap, and then just like pedal for, like, a minute of just, like, solid bike sounds.

My story was about a father that I did not know.

Well, I knew through other people, all bad things, of course.

But it was more of just trying to find out who he was.

I want to forgive my father.

But my grandma doesn't want me to see him.

My grandma has not forgiven my father for what he did to my mom and me.

You know, I was actually thinking about this.

Like, is this a form of therapy?

And I think what's interesting about Dayton Youth Radio, at least for the stories that we've done, when they're really personal, they always start where it's opening up this wound, and then it kind of just lets that be.

And so it doesn't ever solve it, it's not trying to solve it, it's trying to get you and kind of kick you to go and deal with your problems.

And at least it motivates you to ask those questions that you might not have asked.

Radio is a very emotive thing.

And it's still something that can move people to tears, make people laugh, make people get angry.

That's why people tune in.

>> That's what the listener hears when they hear these stories.

It's a love and passion and an excellence.

Once the class is over, I'm off to the next school, and sometimes I'll see the family, like, at the mall.

And, they say, thank you for helping my kid tell that story.

There's a lot of happy endings I've heard from some of these stories going on the air.

I'm always in awe and just feeling blessed to do this project with the teenagers.

>> I understand the value of education and what not having one can do to your life.

>> I'm an aspiring meteorologist who dreams of being on TV one day.

Yeah, I just said meteorologist.

>> When you have a dream, you shouldn't let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough.

You have the power to make a difference.

♪ ♪ For Dayton Youth Radio, this is JeDawn!

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week we look at a riveting documentary about the history of denim and how blue jeans are in America's DNA.

>> More people than ever are wearing denim.

You'd have to look far and wide to find an American of any age who has never worn blue jeans.

>> BOWEN: And life inside the Kennedy White House, through the eyes of its children.

>> Kennedy did see the benefit of using this imagery as part of his public persona.

Mrs. Kennedy didn't always appreciate that.

And there was at least one instance where he actually had the shoot happen while she was out of the country.

(laughs) >> BOWEN: Remember, you can always visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @OpenStudioGBH.

You'll find me @TheJaredBowen.

We leave you now with images of a new mural in Boston's Grove Hall neighborhood.

Part of public art group Now + There's Mentoring Murals series, it's an homage to famed artist Allan Rohan Crite and depicts life on Blue Hill Avenue.

The artists are Johnetta Tinker and Susan Thompson.

I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for joining us.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪